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Friday, July 4, 2014

Happy Fourth of July! To celebrate, it's freebie time! Today I wanted to share a printable pinwheel that I created to embrace the patriotic spirit of this holiday. These pinwheels are a quick, easy way to add a little fun to your Independence Day picnic table. This is my first time using DocStoc to embed a PDF into a blog post, so please comment if you have trouble with it.

Download and print the pinwheel. Cut around the perimeter of the full image. Fold the rectangle in half along the line separating the stripe pattern from the blue/starred portion, with the printed sides facing out. Crease the fold well. Use a glue stick to adhere the two halves together. I don't recommend using white school glue for this because it will wrinkle your paper and it's easy to get too much glue with the squeeze bottle.

After folding/gluing, you'll be left with a square that is printed with red and white stripes on one side and blue with white stars on the other. Once the glue has dried, cut along the diagonal dashed lines on the blue side. Don't cut all the way to the middle! Only cut as far as the dashes go.

Fold alternating corners toward the center, making sure the corners overlap slightly in the center. You can secure each point with a tiny swipe of glue in the center. Pierce the center of the folded pinwheel with the pushpin, making sure to go through all layers. Work the pin around to enlarge the hole so that the pinwheel will spin freely--this is the key to a successful pinwheel! Push the end of the tack into the pencil eraser or tap it into the end of the dowel. Voila!

Stick that baby into the nearest Mason jar and use it to adorn your table. Or run wild around your yard with it--I'm not judging. Be creative and enjoy!

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